Making shots at crucial times and playing sound defense are keys to success in basketball. Dwight head coach Eric Long felt these were instrumental parts to his team’s 57-43 win over Newark at Kresl Gymnasium Friday night.

As far as the Trojans are concerned, transition is the important factor. Scoring in transition means playing well on the defensive end in order to create opportunities on the offensive end of the floor.

This was how Dwight was able to take care of business against the Norsemen. But it wasn’t easy.

There’s been a bit of history with these two schools in the recent past. Newark ended the season for DTHS at the sectional level in 2010 and 2011.

But this game’s importance was being able to come back from the holiday season. Could Dwight play well enough on defense? Could the Trojans convert turnovers and take advantage of scoring opportunities?

The answer to both questions was yes.

“We’re so good in transition but sometimes we get in lulls where we’re not pushing the ball as hard as we can,” Long said. “Pushing the ball, for us, is everything. When we get stops or turnovers, we feel we can come down and score, and sometimes it’s quick.”

Dwight did not get a stop on one Newark trip in the middle of the third quarter. But the Trojans did come back quickly and get a scoring chance.

Colton Fieldman drew a foul, the fourth personal on Jack Clausel, Newark’s top player. Fieldman hit both charity tosses to knot the game at 32-32.

It was Clausel who put the Norsemen ahead for only the second time in the game 30 seconds before with a basket inside.

Fieldman scored the final go-ahead basket the Trojans needed when he tapped home a Caleb Boma miss. The two Fieldman scores triggered what turned out to be a 10-2 run that closed out the third quarter and gave DTHS the momentum it needed heading into the final period.

The run was actually 12-2 as Triston Dircks scored the first points of the final frame for Dwight, making it 42-34. Newark got no closer than six points the rest of the way.

“I’m happy we won but we have a long way to go to be consistent,” Long said. “We did enough things to win but we have a lot of improvements to work out.”

Page 2 of 2 - One of the facets of the game Long and Newark head coach Rick Tollefson looked at as being in need of work was rebounding.

Dwight won the battle on the board 30-28, but each side collected double-digit offensive caroms.

Long said, “You can call it good offensive rebounding but it was really just bad rebounding on defense.”

Dwight got off to strong start by scoring 12 of the game’s first 14 points. Dircks and Boma hit 3-pointers that helped irk Tollefson into using two 30-second timeouts in the first 4:05 of the game.

Despite the early success, the Trojans were unable to stuff the Norsemen as Newark fought back.

An 18-7 lead by DTHS in the final 20 seconds of the first quarter finally evaporated at about the same time in the second quarter. Will Clausel hit two free throws to give Newark its first lead at 23-22.

But Boma calmly and smoothly lined up his shot as time was running out in the first half. The Dwight junior nailed the 3-pointer and the Trojans took the lead with six seconds to go, 25-23.

“Our guards stepped up and made some big 3s,” Long said. “That was the difference.”

Dwight finished the game hitting 7 of 18 shots from beyond the arc. The Trojans were 19 of 50 shooting for the game.